Two Tests of Time
by The6thAnon
Summary: GLaDOS takes Chell back from the outside world intending for her to test, but a strange message from Wheatley gives Chell other ideas.
1. Chapter 1

Chell rubbed the faded squares on her arm and took a breath of the sterile air. She knew she should have been trying to escape, but a still calmness locked her in place. Most test subjects would run or try to attack the invisible voice behind these walls, but Chell had the instinct of silence. Not that it had served her well outside of Aperture. She sighed and got up from the floor, wincing at the stiffness in her neck. GLaDOS hadn't had the courtesy to put her in a pod, or even a decent bed, but this wasn't a surprise to Chell. The only bit of kindness GLaDOS had shown her was at her departure. Chell couldn't help but think a bit of Caroline was still buried in her consciousness—perhaps she was impossible to delete.

The hope gave Chell a trickle of energy, and she knew not to waste it. She found herself with a clean pair of long-fall boots on her feet, and she adjusted to the added height within a few steps.

"Oh, it's you." Chell whipped around, her hands clenching the air. She wished she had a portal gun in her hands. It didn't fire bullets or grenades, but she knew how to maneuver with the twisted physics of portals. She could see herself destroying that camera with a simple portal right there… "Fancy seeing you here." The voice retained that bored, acidic quality Chell remembered, and she struggled to retain her expressionless face. _You brought me here! _The words rushed to the front of her mouth. She might have been a mute, but it was a conscious choice, this natural flow of ideas to spoken words, and it remained in her system.

"Orange brought you back so you can do something useful with your short, pathetic life. Doesn't the thought of contributing to something as magnificent as science excite you? Or is your brain too damaged for you to understand that you'll do some good in the world?" She hadn't heard those taunts in a while. She was used to a different type of conversation, one that expected a response and felt uneasy when there was only chilled air between two people. There was an understanding between them, Chell and GLaDOS, and she felt comforted by the fact that she wouldn't be expected to do anything impossible.

"Do you even remember how to test? You've been gone for three months; it's possible you have trouble walking." Chell took a few steps, a smile playing on her lips before she regained her composure. "_Most_ impressive. Can you jump? You used to be good at that." Even with the sarcastic tone, GLaDOS's words brought up memories of a special personality core.

_"Can you say apple? Aaaaple. Go on!" _

Chell pushed away the memory and walked out of the small room. There was no use in pining away for someone, especially if that someone happened to be orbiting the moon.

"I have a special bunch of tests for you. I hope you can handle them." Chell tightened her long-fall boots and ran down the hall, getting used to the jolt that accompanied each of her landings. The clean floors were shinier than she remembered. Chell wondered what GLaDOS had been doing all this time—remodeling wasn't really her style. Old, dilapidated, huge potatoes growing out of the ceiling—that just screamed GLaDOS.

Chell took the portal gun from its pedestal in front of the first test. She recognized it as her own. There were a few dents left from the first few chambers after her long sleep. She knew how to test, of course, but it took a little getting used to. She wasn't going to let the same thing happen this time.

The first test chamber went without trouble. Portal here, portal there, weighted cube a few feet from a large button…she knew the drill, and it was evident GLaDOS had spent some time improving the tests. They steadily increased in difficulty, and Chell found herself having to think about the solutions. She knew exactly how to stay alive, making it a pleasant change from her life a few days before. Chell wouldn't never admit it (like the AI needed an ego-boost), but she was enjoying the tests' challenge. As long as she didn't slip up, she wasn't in any risk of death. It was almost comforting, how cyclic the procedure was. GLaDOS wouldn't let anything interrupt her precious testing.

"Hello? Hello out there? Can you hear us?" Chell nearly dropped the gun in surprise. GLaDOS gave a soft gasp. The voice was distinctly Wheatley's, but that was impossible. Chell shook her head and aimed the gun at the wall, calculating just how much distance she needed to grab the cube. That-Chell didn't know how to label him-friend? Betrayer? Acquaintance? Whatever he was, Wheatley was undoubtedly in—"

"SPAAAAAAAAAACE! "

And so was his guest. The lights in the test chamber began to flicker, and Chell could hear an announcer's voice declare a system's status over the intercom.

"Please, tell me you can hear us!" Chell wanted to cry out, but her vocal cords seemed frozen from lack of use. She quickly placed a few portals, and the loud, unmistakable _clang_ of a cube hitting the ground rattled across the room.

"Chell? Can ya hear me? Was that you?" Chell didn't know what else to do, so she repeated the actions, letting the cube gain momentum and fall over and over again, until GLaDOS broke the rhythm with a loud "stop!"

The test chamber was silent for a moment.

"That's her, alright! We're saved!" Chell stood still, amazed at the discovery of the cores. She had given up a month ago, when the outside had been its cruelest. It was silly, she knew, to think that the cores could see her, but Chell pretended that they were looking over her from the moon. When the torture from the other humans had been too much, she gave up, realizing that they couldn't do a thing to save her. It was foolish, giving such an errand to a moron and his companion.

She looked up in shock, thankful they couldn't hear her. _He's not a moron!_ Chell would be the first to defend him, so why did the thought spring to her mind?  
"Hmph. Like we'd ever rescue _you_." GLaDOS pressed a button and the transmission ended.

"Resume testing." Chell continued, but her mind was away from the test. GLaDOS may not harbor any sympathy for the cores, but she knew she would do whatever it took to get them back.


	2. Chapter 2

"A walk? That's what you want?" Chell nodded and dropped her arms to her sides, satisfied that her signs had communicated enough meaning. "Is this another thing you humans do? Are you trying to lose weight? A walk won't help you and your…generous size." Chell shook her head. It's not like the taunts about her weight were anything new. If anything, they were amusing, a sort of inside joke between the two. "No. I cannot let you risk your life like this." GLaDOS turned her chassis and looked down at Chell, feigning concern. "Old Aperture might find a way to crush you under tons of rock, a cause with a predictable effect. All deaths must contribute to the cause of science." Chell walked out and returned her to her room. She dropped to her bed, stretching the rough fabric of her blanket. A tear started to form, and she stopped, wary of destroying one of her few possessions.

She walked around the room, her eyes passing over the dusty oil paintings and dull walls. GLaDOS had relented later, informing Chell that she would not be protected or watched if she chose to take her walk. There were "too many important elements of the facility to run," apparently.

Chell shook off the memory from three days ago. She still had a few more tests to complete before she could begin her search. The chamber's pale, scratched walls formed a neat box with a wall hiding a section. The left wall jutted out a bit, forming a thin ridge.

Scanning the chamber, Chell removed the walls from her mind's eye and focused on the test. A discouragement redirection cube sat on a ledge, the mirrors on its faces glinting from artificial sunlight. It was so close to falling off…maybe a bit of pressure could shake it. Chell turned around and located a weighted storage cube. She slipped a portal underneath it and positioned one above the other cube. It collided neatly, sending the reflective cube sailing to the floor a few feet from Chell.

She picked up the cube with the operational end of the device and started to move deeper into the chamber, only to stop and realize that she had no idea what to do. She couldn't see any lasers, buttons, or switches. There was nothing but a laser receptor and an empty stretch of wall. GLaDOS, as evil as she was, didn't leave unsolvable tests lying around the facility. She stepped behind the protruding section of wall—

"Target acquired!"

—and quickly backed away. A laser shot from behind the wall, boring into the pale paint 10 feet away. Chell dropped the cube and snuck another look behind the wall. The turret remained alert but didn't sense her. A button and a tube (connected, no doubt) sat by the edge of the room. GLaDOS couldn't possibly expect her to use a turret as her laser source…

Chell shrugged and picked the cube up once more. Positioning her arm, she released the extra weight with a thrust of the portal device. The laser connected with the receptor, and a door opened behind her. The test subject jogged through the doorway. For once, GLaDOS didn't have a negative word to say about her performance.

Chell changed her jumpsuit and hoisted the portal gun onto her shoulder. Hopefully, she wouldn't need it, but Chell knew not to take a warning from the AI lightly. There could be a giant turret outside the door for all she knew. Chell suppressed a smile. The idea of GLaDOS creating a large killing machine and placing it in front of her door…well, it wasn't too far-fetched. GLaDOS wouldn't put that much effort into trying to kill her now, though.

It didn't take long to get to Old Aperture. The elevator down which she was once pushed was no repaired. A companion cube waited beside the entrance, but Chell left it behind. Companion cubes didn't seem enough like real people. What she wanted was conversation, real conversation, with emotions and ideas communicated between two minds with words and gestures and looks. Chell stepped into the elevator, pushing the cube away with her foot.

The curved walls of the elevator were maimed with crude drawings of Wheatley. Chell traced one with her free hand, and the elevator began to descend. His spherical shape was etched into the elevator, but the lines faltered in some places while others sank through the figures. Chell dragged her finger along once that cut Wheatley's left side in two. The moments depicted had been chosen mercilessly. Sure, Wheatley didn't act like a gentleman when he was in the chassis. No one would. The huge white shell hid a powerful corruption, one that Wheatley couldn't resist. Chell knew Wheatley, and the monster who let the facility fall to ruins was not him.

The main center was spotless now. Chell didn't waste time thinking about renovations; she had a transmitter to find. The elevator slid to a stop, and Chell stepped back, clenching her hands around the portal device. She stepped out.

The place was all iron and decaying paint. Panels peeled from the walls and hung, held only by a few tarnished supports, giving the place a decrepit look. Chell started to edge along a crisscrossed iron bridge, testing the metal with a step before walking across it. She bent down and looked through the crossing strips of rusting iron. If she squinted, she thought she could see a cube or frankenturret floating through the mist. Chell pushed herself to a standing position and rubbed the rust from her hand. Advancing along the platform, Chell walked until she reached a fork. Both paths led into the bluish fog. Chell was about to take a step left when a jolt pulsed through her arm. The muscles moved of their own accord, and she dropped the portal device, tearing her jumpsuit in her haste to roll up the sleeve.

The blue squares on her skin were glowing. Chell grabbed her arm in an attempt to steady it, but the limb trembled from side to side despite her efforts. Chell fell to her knee, reaching for the railing and pulling on it. Eventually, the pulsing stopped, and the squares returned to normal. Chell let out a few quick breaths, a cough punctuating her attack. She rubbed the squares on her arm, poking one experimentally, releasing a relieved sigh as it remained dull.

Chell picked up the portal gun but couldn't find the energy to evaluate the paths. She turned around, wondering what was in the substance seared into her arm. It certainly wasn't paint. She didn't remember much from the branding. Chell cringed as memories filled her mind. Being held down half-unconscious, and old branding tool, a mangled scream from her disused vocal chords, sinister, growling laughs…

The elevator whizzed up dutifully, and Chell circled the faint images of Wheatley with a finger.

_I've been turned into a monster, Wheatley._ _Do you even want to see me now?_

Chell spent no time wandering renovated Aperture. She sank onto the bed, hugging the portal device to her chest. In her sleep, she left across platforms of white wall. They formed a staircase, lifting her to the moon. She curled into a ball on the center of the last panel, closing her eyes. Wheatley would come around any minute now…

_Soon, Wheatley. I'll reach you soon._


End file.
